it is finished
There’s nothing quite like completing a project.
For Christmas this year, Lars and I dehydrated oranges, grapefruits, and limes, sliced into thin, semi-translucent rounds. Then, we strung them on jute cord to make little garlands for our windows. The fresh scent of citrus fills the air in our little home.
These citrus garlands were a small project, but even completing that simple task has brought so much joy and light to our home.
The finished product is beautiful. It doesn’t need to be improved upon. Too often with projects, I become hyper-fixated with perfection. I am constantly tweaking my essays, adjusting my drawings, or repositioning decor in our home. I feel that if I can make things perfect then I by extension will finally be enough. But with these citrus garlands, I am reminded that sometimes finishing the thing is all that needs to be done. The imperfections can be swallowed up in a tidal wave of grace.
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I’ve long loved this phrase spoken by our Saviour. “It is finished.” The work is done! The task is complete. Jesus did what we could never do. The price has been paid. We are free!
“It is finished.” May those words land on your bones for the nights when fear tells you the cross was just a beginning and you must finish grace.
Jon Acuff
We were discussing this phrase of Jesus at youth earlier this year. As I was mulling it over and sharing it with the kids, I realized something.
God could have taken the easy way out.
He could have seen the sinful state you and I are in and decided to ignore the sinfulness. He could have excused your guilt and allowed you into heaven just the way you are. He could have declared you “not guilty” without any further ado. He makes the rules, after all! What He says goes. What would it matter, anyway?
Wouldn’t that have been “good enough?”
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I work in the finance department, so I’m constantly dealing with payments and balancing accounts. Occasionally, we will have a client who seems to drop off the face of the planet when it comes time to collect payment. Sometimes, they are MIA for so long that we write off the remaining balance and leave it at that, never having collected the funds. We have to absorb the cost ourselves, but it never really gets paid and the payments are never finished.
God could have done that too, couldn’t He? He could’ve written off your sin debt and not collected the payment from anyone.
He could have taken the easy way out.
But He didn’t.
Because He is both loving and just, He knew that the price for sin had to be paid. The account had to be set to rights again. The wages of sin is death and someone had to pay the price.
So instead of requiring the price from your account, He put it on Jesus. He charged Jesus with your wrongdoing. He went after Jesus to collect the payment. That would be like my employer paying the account off themselves instead of simply writing off the missing funds! That’s bad business in the human way of thinking, that’s for sure!
That is a gloriously gutsy move right there. It cost God His only Son to make things right with you. You were the one whose account was overdue. You were the one who was dodging your payments. And God decided that instead of requiring the payment at your hand, He would require it at Jesus’.
That is how beloved and precious you are to God, friend. He could have taken the easy way out but He didn’t because He is perfectly just. He could have condemned you, but He didn’t because He is perfectly loving.
It is finished. Your account is paid off. You are free!
Tim Keller said it this way:
“After creation, God said “it is finished”—and He rested.
After redemption, Jesus said “it is finished”—and we can rest.”
Tim Keller
Our citrus garland is not perfect, nor will it ever be. And yet, it still brings a smile to my face and peace to my heart when I see the beauty that Lars and I made together.
You, on the other hand, are in the midst of sanctification. One day, you will be made perfect. Already, even now, God is working on your heart, changing the way you think, making you more like Himself—and more like the person He created you to be. God delights in you, His workmanship.
You may not be finished just yet—that will come with time—but in God’s eyes, the work is as good as done. Usually when someone says that something is finished, that means it’s as good as it’s going to get. But God’s finishing is a point of beginning for us. We can have a new life, new hopes, and new desires because God has completed the work we couldn’t do on our own!
You can rest in His unchanging grace. Release the burden of outcomes. Leave your undone Christmas and New Year’s lists out of the equation because the work is already finished and God has declared you as His beloved.
It is finished. And that is a truth you can hold in both hands like a comforting mug of tea. Warm. Secure. And splashed generously with grace, flowing like milk and honey in the Promised Land.
